In spite of a 4-1 win last night against the Pirates and a 2-1 series win, the Cubs offense continues to struggle - they scored seven runs in three games against Pittsburgh and managed to get shut out by Russ Ohlendorf. It’s time to examine some of the culprits.

One of the better ways to do this is through Weighted On Base Average. If you don’t know wOBA, you can check out that link for an explanation. But in short, it attempts to assign a value in runs to everything a player does at the plate, and then gives you an average of that number per plate appearance. The whole thing is then multiplied by a coefficient so that the stat works on about the same scale as on-base percentage.

So here’s a table of the wOBAs of all Cubs hitters with 100 PA or more. I’ve included, in red, the 2008 national league average, and a rough estimate of what “replacement level” is. The idea behind replacement level is that any given team probably has a player who can perform at about this level just hanging out at AAA - basically that’s about level of production you would expect in the long term from a career minor-leaguer. A team full of replacement-level players would be historically bad.

Not a lot of surprises at the top or the bottom. Derrek Lee has been the best regular for the team this season, having completely made up for his slow start and then some. Aaron Miles has been positively awful. Fukudome has fallen off as the year has gone on, but his cumulative numbers are still solid. Reed Johnson has been very good, although he’s on the disabled list right now. Theriot has been about average - which isn’t actually bad at all for a shortstop, who are often below average.

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The Cubs scored a whole run yesterday. Score like three or four more of those and you’ve got an average offensive game from a major league team. So Lou Piniella is rightfully upset, and hes talking about making changes. Rick Morrissey has some ideas what those changes should be. Let’s take a look at what he suggests.

1. Move Alfonso Soriano down in the order and play him at second base - This is a bad idea. I don’t really care where Soriano bats - when he’s playing well he’s fine in the leadoff spot. Right now he’s not playing well, but the reason is that he’s hurt. He’s got a bum knee, and because of it he’s hitting .154 over the last month. Soriano doesn’t need the strain of playing the infield. He needs rest. Right now he’s a liability. Get him out of the lineup for a few days and give him a chance to get some treatment for the knee without stressing it every day. Moving him into the infield is the worst possible thing the Cubs could do.
2. Bat Ryan Theriot leadoff - This is a push. Someone has to bat leadoff while Soriano isn’t in the lineup, and Theriot has been decent at getting on base in his career, so he’s as good a choice as anyone, I suppose. But Theriot hasn’t been doing a great job getting on base over the last month, either - he’s only OBP’ing .319 since then. So this is hardly a panacea.
3. Put Jake Fox in left field - This is a good idea. Again, Morrissey thinks that Soriano should be playing second, thus opening space for Fox. I think that’s crazy talk. But if Soriano is going to be resting his knee for a few days, I would gladly take the risk that Fox can’t competently field anything hit at him for the chance that he might knock one out of the park. I would probably platoon him and Hoffpauir, though.
4. Give Reed Johnson a real shot in center field and platoon Kosuke with Johnson and Fox - This is a good idea. In fact, it doesn’t go far enough. Kosuke is already platooning with Johnson. Fukudome has only batted against lefthanded pitching 11 times. Given how poorly Fukudome is hitting recently, I would go ahead and give Johnson more at-bats against right handers too, at least for a while. He’s bad against righties, but right now Fukudome looks pretty lost.

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The Cubs offense has been lousy this season. The team misses Aramis Ramirez badly, but even with him the offense would not be the powerhouse we were hoping. To some extent, there’s not much that can be done to fix it. Ramirez will come back, and hopefully that will help. Milton Bradley will start hitting - or he won’t - but given his career statistics, you have to assume he will. Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto have both started hitting some, but given the early-season holes they put themselves in offensively, their season lines still don’t look very good. There is, though, one thing that can be done: Aaron Miles needs to go.

Miles had, before yesterday, a season line of .206/.250/.265 in 110 plate appearances. That’s good for the 10th most plate appearances on the team, and 16th on the team in OPS, ahead of only some pitchers, Joey Gathright and Ryan Freel. The Cubs’ team line is .250/.330/.408. Everyone who’s batted for the Cubs who isn’t Aaron Miles? .253/.334/.416.

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The Cubs went through quite a bit in May. Milton Bradley served his suspension, and Carlos Zambrano started his. Zambrano, Rich Harden, Ryan Freel, Aaron Miles, Aramis Ramirez and Chad Fox all hit the disabled list.

Zambrano came back briefly, as alluded to above. Harden is due back soon, but Ramirez is out until July.  Miles and Freel are somewhere in between.

Freel was acquired, Jeff Samardzija demoted, Joey Gathright traded, while Randy Wells and Jose Ascanio were promoted.

Jake replaced Chad in the Fox role, and Andres Blanco got his glove into the game.

Jason Waddell took Neal Cotts’ spot - for now - but the pitching roles, particularly Sean Marshall’s, will change over the next few days.

Bobby Scales made his debut, stuck around, got demoted.  He was recalled before even a day went by, when Freel injured his hamstring.

Take a look at the rosters on the first of May and the first of June.

*suspended as of June 1

Only 18 spots, counting Zambrano’s, have come up the same at both points in time.  Some guys will come back soon, and June could be just as dizzying as May. Unless they start winning consistently.